Wells Central Pub is booming with music over the speakers floating around and between dozens of people gathered in the small space with many leaning over countertops or towards one another. Some are waiting in line for dinner before the show. The band members congregate at the bar, leaning into one another, smiling. If you did not know any better, it would be hard to pick them out from the rest of the crowd; just some people here to have a good night. Their instruments are already set up in the ground-level stage area, waiting to be played. Next to them, the familiar employees of Central Pub are saying hi to their musician friends.
The band members start warming up and, immediately, their sound fills the room. Heads turn for the quick starting and stopping of their sound tests. Finally, they begin in earnest. A somewhat quiet intro, before a soft voice cuts through, then a ‘woosh’ as all of the instruments pick up. Heads and shoulders start bobbing, all eyes are fixed and attention is captivated.
Cole Bruton, Riley Auxier, Franklin Libby and Zach Smith make up the local band Tease. They are self-described as ‘LOUD’ in their Instagram bio. Similar to a lot of the music on campus, they play in and around the University of Maine area almost exclusively and have a special kind of relationship with the students and the groups who host them off-campus.
After the first song is finished, there is a rainfall of applause from the audience and a vague noise of thanks from the lead singer.
“I came with my friend Lilly, excited to see this band that we have liked a lot for a few semesters,” said Corinne Francesca Adissi. She and her friend had been dancing together near the band during the first part of the show and clearly came to have a good time.
“They are talented,” Lilly Keaton said. “They’re just fun to watch perform.” Indeed, her opinion seemed to be the popular one as people began to gather around the performance even in a space not really made for music.
“We were surprised to see people sitting stoically and even what looked to be a professor with airpods in-ear making assignments for a class,” Adissi said, a little upset. Despite the fact that the two described themselves as only knowing “a little about the music scene,” their assumption was not far off. Having a band play in Wells is atypical for the Bangor-area music scene. What is normally in basements, at parties or even in the woods, was brought to a maintained, university building which, as stated, is not built for music.
“It looked like people were paralyzed in their seats,” Adissi commented. Even though, at many Tease performances, Adissi and Keaton are the average listener: engaged and up close, moving to the music. As the band started up again Keaton remarked on what the university might do differently.
“Maybe people would want to dance in the dark,” Keaton pondered. It brings up an interesting question: while the university is reaching out and getting involved with the local music scene, is there something being lost with their involvement?
After the midway break ended, Adissi and Keaton made their way back to the front of the show. An entire row of body-shakers and head-movers had now amassed in front of the band. The space being what it is, the dancers did what they could to have a good time.
And this seemed to be a metaphor for the entire show: it brought what a lot of people see as gate kept out into the open, somewhere anyone could attend, but it also lost the secret, private aspect.
Tease did an amazing job and played as good as they do at any other show. Even in the small brightly-lit room, the band members looked as if they were just practicing in their garage together, without any eyes on them.
